Some reports on how
the media (mainstream or not) presents
spirituality are in this issue.If you are still wondering what's all the fuss
about "The Secret", I ran across a link where you can
view the entire movie.

It's not about getting
way from our imperfect selves toward some
perfect selves; this is about just simply allowing all to be as
it is
until all battles fall away and we're just left shining, no more
perfect than we ever were in this me, and yet this perfection
shines
through us. All these improvement projects to perfect this
tacked-together piece of doo-doo we call the personality that we
think
we need. If we get that a little bit better looking then we'll
attract
bliss. No, it's about it just crumbling down out of disrepair.
And
then what's left is just this emptiness, and out of the emptiness
shines the Beloved.

- Jeannie Zandi

Dearest
Friends,

John from Cincinnati ~

If you haven't had a chance to
see this new series on HBO, then check out these clips. It's one
of the most vibrant and innovative tv series on television today.
It explores image, ego, spirit, and what that means to human
beings, individually and collectively. It'll blow your mind.
Nonduality and the larger spiritual viewpoints being offered
to the public at large, the folks at HBO are breaking ground on
the inevitable, revealing what's already being offered through
the internet, and bringing the profound teachings we may take for
granted, to the mainstream viewing audience. Love and forgiveness
are main themes of this show. Compassion and understanding are
there, too, and in abundance, side by side with the darker, very
real, psychologically-damaged side of humans and their
relationships with one another. The human psyche and the human
heart are revealed ... and then they are healed. It's a must-see
tv program. Here are some youtube clips about it, after the
Angela of Foligno quote ~

"God
presents himself in the inmost depths of my soul. I understand
not only that he is present, but also how he is present in every
creature and in everything that has being, in a devil and a good
angel, in heaven and hell, in good deeds and in adultery or
homicide, in all things, finally, which exist or have some degree
of being, whether beautiful or ugly. I also understand that he is
no less present in a devil than a good angel. Therefore, while I
am in this truth, I take no less delight in seeing or
understanding his presence in a devil or in an act of adultery
than I do in a good angel or in a good deed."

A wonderful interview about the
making and ideas involved in "John from Cincinnati"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnUVW24Oz6EBilocation, levitation, revelation,
contemplation, emancipation, liberation ....take a walk with John from Cincinnati
every Sunday night on HBO, 'cause who knows, all of those
manifestations and explorations just might be unfolding before
you, just for the mere 'becauseness' of it.

From Bernadette Roberts:

The Path to No-Self, What is
Self and The Experience of No-Self states:

"My view of
what some authors call the "unitive stage" is that it
begins with the Dark Night of the Spirit, or the onset of the
transformational process - when the larva enters the cocoon, so
to speak. Up to this point, we are actively reforming ourselves,
doing what we can to bring about an abiding union with the
divine. But at a certain point, when we have done all we can, the
divine steps in and takes over. The transforming process is a
divine undoing and redoing that culminates in what is called the
state of "transforming union" or "mystical
marriage", considered to be the definitive state for the
Christian contemplative. In experience, the onset of this process
is the descent of the cloud of unknowing, which, because his
former light had gone out and left him in darkness, the
contemplative initially interprets as the divine gone into
hiding. In modern terms, the descent of the cloud is actually the
falling away of the ego-center, which leaves us looking into a
dark hole, a void or empty space in ourselves. Without the veil
of the ego-center, we do not recognize the divine; it is not as
we thought it should be. Seeing the divine, eye to eye is a
reality that shatters our expectations of light and bliss. From
here on we must feel our way in the dark, and the special eye
that allows us to see in the dark opens up at this time."